


Nightlife

by TheCinematicRevealThatBatmanIsDead



Category: Akira - All Media Types
Genre: Dissociation, F/M, Nothing Happens But I Like It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6085227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCinematicRevealThatBatmanIsDead/pseuds/TheCinematicRevealThatBatmanIsDead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tetsuo, Kaori, and Kaneda reflect on simpler times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thunder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MARS (SuperFortress)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperFortress/gifts).



> This is really just setup. More's on the way if you're interested. Let me know.

_ It’s two in the morning, and the floodwaters have receded. The flag of the Great Tokyo Empire waves gently in the breeze. The USNS  _ Warmth _ , bone-white with two red crosses on either side and bearing the Stars and Stripes, bobs gently a mile and a half offshore. The wind picks up, and both banners go rigid, pulsating slightly against the gale. The wind cuts through Kaneda’s jacket, bites into his skin. It smells of salt and ash. Everything smells of salt and ash. It used to be different. _

 

It was ten o’clock at night. The wind smelled like rain, like tea, like incense and humid air being smashed against the pavement. It smelled like grease and spent oil. Everything smelled like hot blood.

The old word for kids like him, or groups of kids like him, was “Kaminari zoku”. Thunder tribes. Thunder, like the divine roar lightning makes, thunder like the screams of his engine, like the sound of a person tumbling to the pavement at 130 kilometers per hour. There was thunder in his blood tonight. Among other things.

The Harukiya Bar and Underground Restaurant never had more than nine or ten customers at a time. It had a jukebox full of old CDs, a Ridge Racer NEO arcade cabinet, and an old television with speakers that would blow if the volume rose above 14. The bathroom was lit blue by a fluorescent bulb crawling with moths that had lost their way. The mirror over the sink was cracked, and a few of the shards were tipped with a dark brown stain. Tetsuo Shima folded his gloves and placed them in his back pocket. He took a boxing stance, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he eyed his reflection in the mirror. 

Jab. Cross. Jab. Hook. Jab. Jab. Cross. Hook. Jab. Uppercut. You’re favoring your right. Cross. Cross. Jab. Hook. Jab. Elbow. He’s down. Instinctively, his hand drifted to the gun at his left side, held fast to his body via a leather shoulder holster. For the third time that night, he prayed he wouldn’t have to use it. Behind him, he heard a flush. He grabbed his hoodie from the hook on to the right of the mirror and slipped into it effortlessly. Kaneda emerged from the stall, whistling as he zipped up his red bomber jacket. 

“Oh, Tetsuo, did I show you?”

He turned around to expose the new emblem on the back of his jacket. A red and blue capsule, wreathed with some English text.

Tetsuo nodded, impressed. “That’s neat. What’s it say?”

“‘Good for Health, Bad for Education,’” Kaneda replied, making no attempt to hide the smugness in his voice. Tetsuo chuckled. “You fuckin’ junkie.”

Kaneda smiled good-naturedly. “I like to party. Sue me.” 

The two stepped out of the bathroom into the dim, smoky lighting of the bar proper. The manager/bartender, a cut bald guy with what Tetsuo could only describe as a placid mustache, called them out before they could get to the exit. 

“You kids planning on buying something?”

“Bite me.”

With a sigh of resignation, or perhaps barely suppressed rage, the man went back to scrubbing the bar. 

The air in the alley was cool. The impact of boots against wet pavement mirrored the rhythm of Tetsuo’s heartbeat. He mounted his bike and allowed himself an admiring, if a bit envious, glance at Kaneda’s bike. It was a beautiful machine. Cherry red, unscratched. This would be its inaugural outing. Again, his mind drifted to the gun at his side. He shook his head gently and lifted the goggles to his face. The bike roared to life beneath him. For a moment, the sky lit up, and just a few seconds later came a thunderclap that rattled the windows of the warehouse across the street. 

 

“Is this yours?”

Tetsuo’s voice came from her bedroom. Wincing, Kaori prayed he hadn’t found the gun. Or the knife. Or the other knife. 

“Kaori? There’s a gun on your dresser, is it yours?”

Son of a bitch.

A tingling sensation shot through her skin. A vibration, really. Her pulse pounded in her ears, rising to a scream until the tiles of the floor began to seperate, the walls began to tilt away from her. 

“Kaori?”

Speak, speak, speak, come  _ on _ .

“Yes.”

The tingling stopped abruptly, cooling into a dull rumble, like a thunderstorm several miles away. 

“You okay?”

She realized how heavily she was breathing. “I-I’m fine. I’m fine. That gun was my dad’s. From the war, I think. I don’t...think I could ever use it, but it’s good to keep...y’know, keep a part of him around.” 

Tetsuo’s arms dropped to his sides. She could feel the question coming. She dreaded it.

“Are...you okay having it around?”

But when it came, she was relieved.  She shook her head, looking at her shoes.

Tetsuo pulled her in. She closed her eyes, and let herself fall into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and drinking his sheer and undeniable presence in. 

“Okay then. You don’t mind if I take it?”

It was so simple with him. She shook her head again, not crying, not yet.

“Okay,” he said again. 

 

_ The thunder never stopped for either of them. Each breath was sacred. Each breath felt like their last.  _


	2. Fire

_ Kaneda had sat in on the meeting with the UN Ambassador. The fire of Kei’s rhetoric almost scared him. “The UN today is simply the culmination of the flawed ideas of supremacy the west has festered in for thousands of years. Before the war, they might have been a peacekeeping force. But now, they’re just another incompetent bureaucracy. Children playing with matches.” She dipped her head, out of breath. These people have guns. What the hell are you doing, Kei? _

 

Okay. Okay. That was all he ever asked her. Of course she wasn’t okay. He’d find her out in the street some nights, no jacket, no wallet, just wandering aimlessly with a dead look in her eyes. She said it was like sleepwalking, but she was awake. She said she was awake  _ somewhere _ , somewhere outside her body just watching herself move, out of control, powerless over an infinite nothing that burrowed into her heart, into her bone marrow, into the recesses of her decaying brain. She said she dreamed of parasites in her eyes, her spine, her blood, crawling into her soul and sucking the life out of her. He looked at the gun, and her logic wasn’t hard to follow. She wanted to make a hole and get them out.

His foster mom would flip if she knew he had a gun. In some ways, he supposed, he was lucky. She never laid a hand on him, she worked hard, she kept him fed. But she wasn’t cut out for the job. Some nights, she’d get absolutely shitfaced, and he’d have to drive her home on the back of his bike. It never bothered him, of course. He never looked at her like she was a sick animal. He never cried himself to sleep over his feelings of helplessness. He was a Capsule. He had fire in his veins. He didn’t give a fuck about anyone or anything except the rest of his  _ Kaminari Zoku _ . 

 

He told her stories of the hunts, their little tribe’s adventures. Sometimes she would ride with him. Even when she felt a thousand miles away, the rumbling of the bike was like an anchor, keeping her rooted to the earth. Tetsuo sometimes worked on his bike after school, and she watched. In the heart of the machine was a fire that Tetsuo fed with gasoline and protected with steel and antifreeze. Internal combustion was the word. An explosion. A fire. 

Perhaps humans make tools in their own image, she thought, her hand moving to the center of her chest. Despite everything, she could feel her heart banging against her touch. It was warm.

 


End file.
